In Bayonetta, the main way to evade enemy attacks is to dodge. Why did you want to make parrying the central defense mechanic for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance?

Atsushi Inaba, Producer at PlatinumGames: The core concept behind the character in Rising is that Raiden is always moving forward. We don’t want him hiding, dodging attacks, or rolling away. We always want him to meet attacks head on and move into a combo. Even if he’s running towards enemies he is getting rid of bullets, even getting hit by them, but he is always moving forward. As a character, we didn’t want him to move back on anything. It was because of this direction of the character we went with this game design.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance seems to have Kojima Productions style humor. There’s a scene in Denver where you turn around while a boss is lecturing Raiden about war and a soldier is petting a cat and there are those 3D cubes which reference the girly magazines from other MGS games.

Yuji Korekado, Creative Producer at Kojima Productions: You might think that it’s very Kojima Productions-esque, but all of the humor came out of PlatinumGames. We collaborated with them, but it usually came forth from their team. My favorite gag, you might have seen it in the realtime demo, where Raiden tries to put in a USB drive. [Laughs]

AI: If you’re talking about some of the items maybe you have to look around and find, I like the one in the Monsoon battle that you just talked about where the enemy is petting the cat. [Laughs.] Also, in the first scene where you land on the beach there is a cat there, but you can’t cut it. No matter what, the cat dodges Raiden’s attacks.

If you’re talking about cutscenes, there is a part in Mexico where Raiden thinks he’s completely blended in wearing a pancho and mariachi style outfit. [Laughs.] Raiden pretty much thinks nobody thinks he’s a cyborg and he’s in stealth mode. The fact that everyone is focused on him and Raiden thinks he’s totally blended in is the kind of ironic humor I like.

Speaking of stealth, Raiden can also sneak behind enemies to take them down and hide in cardboard boxes. That’s quite different from the concept of always moving forward, which you talked about earlier. Was it difficult to design levels for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance with two different play styles – stealth and action?

AI: The concept moving Raiden forward was the core design, but we wanted to give players options. We didn’t want players to say this game is only cutting, it could get dull after awhile. At PlatinumGames, when we were thinking about level design we wanted to give players an option if you go down this street you’re going to run into cyborgs and there will be heavy action with Raiden cutting them up. But, if you go this way you might be able to do stealth kills.

There are a lot of options per stage and there are things you can receive, items and whatnot, deepening on what route you go through. That adds replay value and we’re proud of that, as well. The path you take doesn’t matter, but in the end we hope our design offers a lot of play styles and will add to the value of the entire game.

Speaking of cutting down cyborgs, Raiden seems rather conflicted about his role and the "Ripper" inside of him later in the game. I remember you mentioned a "no-kill" mode too where Raiden can use a wooden sword. Can you tell us more about this?

AI: There isn’t any message behind the wooden sword. It’s just another item for players to use and add value for replays. It’s a different play style and adding options is always great for an action game, so we thought it would be great to add this too.

YK: There is a story when you play through Rising, but the story of Raiden turning into Jack the Ripper doesn’t change if you use different weapons. Moving Raiden forward is the root of the game, so we wanted to add the no-kill mode as additional gameplay mode for players.

When developing Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance how did your view of Raiden, as a character, change and where do you see Raiden going in the future?

YK: In Rising, we got to see Raiden grow as a character and develop as a person. Beyond that, within the Metal Gear universe there are a lot of characters and stories. Within that we were able to show the value of the universe and expand on it. We were able to prove we can create branches to explain more deep stories within the universe.

AI: I really think I was able to see Raiden grow independently and strong as a character and as a man. To be part of that was an honor. Moving forward, if Kojima Productions feels that another Raiden game is needed I would love to be a part of making Raiden’s next growth.

About parry, if I remember correctly, the main point of swordplay is parrying instead of clashing between blade – or block by blade. Not only it brings higher chance to counterattack, it also reduce the damage sustained to the blade itself. With that I’m quite please with the concept of Raiden’s swordplay.

TrevHead

That’s right, when you parry blade against blade they become a lever where the blade can be easily turned into an attack

Göran Isacson

Wjem you say “parry instead of clashing between blade, or block by blade”, what do you mean? I will admit that I am not educated in swordplay, but IMO “blocking by blade” and parrying look pretty much the same…

https://twitter.com/GaleGlory89 KiQun

By “block” you let the blade coming into direct contact with other weapon. As the result of the impact, there will be a certain damage to the blade that cause it to lose durability by long run, even worse, to break during the battle. “Parry” help you avoid direct contact by following the strike’s trajectory,diverse it to the side of blade and disperse damage to minimum. Not only it reduce the chance of harming the blade, it will create a chance for counterattack.

I lack knowledge to explain it properly, you may have to imagine it to get a grasp of it.

Göran Isacson

Oh no, I understood it well enough. It’s basically about letting the attack “slide off” instead of “stopping it head on”, so to speak?

https://twitter.com/GaleGlory89 KiQun

Precisely, that’s the closest answer.

drexxia

“and other questions for platinumgames”
-where is my bayonetta 2 for ps360xbox??

…Is it just me, or have you guys started quoting Nostalgia Critic more often recently? (If you did that at all in the past.)

http://www.youtube.com/user/EnvyMizuhashi Garyuu of Spades

Not me. lol Last time I did was at least 3 weeks ago? xP

M’iau M’iaut

There were other questions Spencer asked beyond parrying in this particular game — which isn’t Bayonetta 2. Please leave console requests elsewhere, as well.

Bloodios

It’s in Nintendo’s hands now, so don’t anyone ever dream of ever seeing it on anything else other than Nintendo’s systems. If complains must be made anyway, how about directing them towards Sony and Microsoft for not seizing the opportunity to secure the IP, or better yet, pour it right on Sega’s head for refusing to fund the project. In any case, quit the pointless struggle. This case is closed and has been for quite sometimes.

http://www.facebook.com/phillip.hughes.581 Phillip Hughes

Ask Sony and Microsoft that question. They couldve jumped on that project but Nintendo did so be happy we are getting a bayonetta 2

Revorse

Isn’t a demo supposed to be coming out tomorrow? I wanna get my hands on this.

Auvers

13th

MrSirFeatherFang

Go Friender!
I must’ve missed that picture of Raiden and his dog companion (if it has a name yet)
It felt weird with no dodge, but when I mistime my parry, at least it turns into a block (though what is unblockable probably must be parried)

ZEROthefirst

I was surprised I hadn’t seen a Casshern/Casshan, Friender reference until now.

z_merquise

I never thought there’s also a wooden sword available in the game.

Now I wonder if there would be other weapons besides the ones Raiden would get when he defeated the Desperado bosses.

Having different costumes as unlockables would be really cool too.

Sano Tony

this should come in vita too.

OatMatadoQuatro

They already said it can’t because of hardware limitations.

isfuturebright

Must…play…this…

XiaomuArisu

Time to rise Jack!
Time to rise!

OatMatadoQuatro

Anyone tried defeating an enemy in the demo without killing him? In the demo I cut a cyborg’s limbs and he remained alive… however, he exploded 3 seconds later (??)

Göran Isacson

Huh, a wooden sword for no kill runs… but what about Metal Gears? Beating up giant robots with a wooden sword is kinda… oh my god.

Raiden is now Kuno/Motoko from Ranmna/Love Hina! The crossovers are over 9000! I like their philosophy on removing dodging because it isn’t Raiden’s “style”, so to speak, but I remain skeptical about the plotline until I’ve the game in my own hands and can see for myself if it is good or not.

JazzWithAttitude

I really needs the demo,i don’t had the change to play MSG4 so i don’t have any idea from what happened to him any chance to this game tell in a flashback or something?

And i hear the game going to have a brazilian swordman…well…we don’t have a sword technique…

$29857887

A Brazillian Swordsman?as a Brazillian i’m intrigued

Nitraion

Ok so its like this:
*Snake look at enemy
“Damn an enemy i must back, oh there it is a card box!!!” * point traqulizer gun*
*Raiden look at enemy
“Hmmph…nothing can bring Me down!!!” *Madness cutting*

http://openid.anonymity.com/5HuDuQyz Woot

I’m running out of adjectives to describe how great Platinum Games is. If it weren’t for them (and the ex-Clover) I wouldn’t even be here playing games or reading news about ‘em…

Thanks for this interview!

http://www.blackxino.blogspot.com/ Xino

I wasn’t quite happy with the way the Parry was designed in this game:/
it’s too weird!
all you do is block and the timing doesn’t feel percise

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